Love is in the Little Things

 

Opening Words:

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

~Mary Oliver

 

Sermon: Love is in the Small Things

Love is in the little things.

I’m walking down the 16^th street mall in Denver holding my Free Hugs sign, feeling a little despondent that no one has asked for a hug yet. I’ve seen plenty of people who I think need one—the homeless man on the corner huddled up in his sleeping bag, the businessman talking on the phone who’s obviously stressed and overworked, the teenager with the baggy jeans and black band T-shirt scowling at the ground. And yet, none of them have the boldness, or maybe just the recklessness to come get a hug from the silly blue haired girl with a sign. Then, out of nowhere, I feel something at my side. I look down to see a boy who can’t be older than ten years old clinging to me and smiling radiantly up at my face. Feeling his enthusiasm, I reach my arms over and embrace him, putting every ounce of warmth and presence I have into my smile. After a few minutes of solid and meaningful hugging, he breaks away. I look up to see a woman, presumably his mom, standing next to me. She opens her mouth to speak, but instead immediately breaks down crying. I’m a bit confused, but accept her into my embrace as well. When she calms down, she says through her tears that her son is autistic and nonverbal, and that she has never seen him smile before in her life.

Another time, I was giving Free Hugs in downtown Colorado Springs with a group of other Unitarian Universalist youth. As we stood on the corner by Starbucks, a woman approached us and a bit sardonically said, “I like what you’re doing, but who would ever actually accept a hug from a stranger?” before going into Starbucks to get her coffee. About an hour later, the same woman came out and walked back over to us. “I’ve been watching you,” she said. “And I think I’ve changed my mind. I would like a hug.”  She then hugged every single one of us, and her face burst into an infectious smile. She then proceeded to hug the next four people she saw walking down the street.

Love is in the everyday moments.

I have taken the Free Hugs Campaign very seriously since I first experienced it in high school. I hand-made my own sign with construction paper and a permanent marker and folded it up so I could carry it everywhere in my backpack. I made it a daily practice during college to stand in the plaza for an hour after class giving hugs to other stressed students. I’ve spent time in the downtown areas of many cities, giving free hugs to houseless folks and people from all backgrounds. At Colorado State University, I’ve proudly held my sign in the free speech plaza, competing with the man who held the “You’re all going to Hell” sign. The day after both Trump elections, I donned my sign and went out to hug my neighbors at the University of Denver and in downtown Fort Collins. I have held countless crying people, laughing people, shy people, and people who weren’t sure if they really felt comfortable hugging a stranger. Some of my closest friends in college met me because I gave them a hug when they needed one. To me, giving Free Hugs has been some of my most serious social justice work.

Love is in the simplest, most human actions.

One day when I was heading to class, I saw a totally different person holding a Free Hugs sign in the plaza. I went out of my way to hug them, not telling them who I was or my connection to the movement. I simply reveled in the sense that I was not alone.

Love is a practice of doing mundane things for non-mundane reasons.

I believe that a single hug can change the world. I believe that moments of genuine human connection are what make us whole. I believe that sharing love with a stranger is real and essential to creating a world we want to live in. When I hug someone, I am not thinking about how they look, or how they believe, or how they can contribute to society. Instead, I am taking a moment to say “I see you” in all of your flaws and weaknesses, in your vulnerability and struggle. I see you and I accept you as equally worthy of love and understanding.

I try to take this mentality into my personal life as well. If I can share such love with strangers, then it is doubly important for me to share it with those I care about. I give out hugs to my friends and family freely. I say “I love you” to people on a regular basis and mean it. I listen when they talk and allow them to share their fullest and truest selves with me. I move with intention in my relationships to show gratitude.

Love is something we can all do.

You don’t have to be crazy enough to make a Free Hugs sign and offer yourself up to strangers to spread love. Love is so much simpler than that. Love can be holding the door open for someone. Love can be saying hello to a houseless person on the corner. Love can be making the bed. Love can be laughing with your child or listening when your friend speaks. The only condition for love is that we show up in our lives with intentionality. I believe that love is in the small things. I believe that these small things amount to something so much bigger than ourselves. I believe this love is a force with the power to change the world. I believe that love is the only way we can change the world. And, most of all, I believe that we are all capable of spreading this love through every action we take. So I ask you, what are you going to do to practice love today?

 

Closing Words:

Even after all this time

The sun never says to the earth,

“You owe Me.”

Look what happens with

A love like that,

It lights the Whole Sky.

~Hafiz

 

On Loving a Recovering Addict

 

Opening Words:

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

 

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

 

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

 

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

 

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

~Rumi

 

Sermon: On Loving a Recovering Addict

Unconditional love can be hard. My best friend is a recovering addict. Sometimes my best friend is an addict.

When I first met Amanda, I had no idea that we would become best friends. We had a one-time interaction at the hookah bar where we discovered we both liked Tim Burton and exchanged numbers. We texted a little bit, but it eventually petered out and we stopped talking entirely. Then, a few months later, I felt randomly compelled to text her and apologize that we’d never hung out. She responded with something completely unexpected: she was currently in in-patient treatment for alcohol addiction. Normally, I would have probably left it at that and moved on with my life. However, for some reason I felt a deeper draw towards this person. So, instead, we texted back and forth every day from 1-4 when she was allowed to have her phone. Because I had been so accepting of her even in a vulnerable state, we quickly became close.

When Amanda got out of rehab, we started hanging out regularly, immediately discovering that we had much in common, from our taste in media to our values. Soon, we became inseparable and she told me about her struggle with alcohol and drugs and how they had taken over her life. I felt empathy for her, but I honestly didn’t really get it as someone who had never been through addiction. I had heard the line that addiction is a sickness rather than a moral failing, but I had a hard time really understanding what that really meant.

I had also heard that relapse is a part of recovery, but I believed that based on what I knew of her, Amanda was too strong for that. So, when she relapsed I was totally unprepared. Watching someone you love relapse is like being in freefall. You can see things objectively, but there’s nothing you can do to stop it. At first, I thought that I had failed her as a friend or that my friendship wasn’t important enough to stop her from drinking. It took a lot of self-work and conversations with Amanda to realize that this was simply something I had no control over. I could be a support and provide as much love as I had, but that was almost irrelevant in the face of addiction. Hence, we worked hard to set some healthy boundaries. I could love and support Amanda with all the fierceness of my heart, but I could not for any reason, shoulder or take responsibility for her addiction.

At first, this boundary was hard. I wanted to save her. But, I had to realize that was not my place nor my responsibility. I could only be a safe harbor for her to come home to when she was ready. Amanda went back to in-patient treatment and we had to spend a month apart. She called me every Sunday when she had access to a phone for an hour. Despite the distance and the circumstances, we remained close.

When she got out again, we went back to our previous friendship right away. This time, things had really seemed to stick with her. She seemed so much more determined to care about herself and become who she wanted to be. I was fully supportive, and we began working on creating a loving community around us. So, when she relapsed again, I was once again unprepared.

When Amanda relapsed, she would go from constant contact, texting back and forth and hanging out every day, to completely disappearing from my life without a trace. The first time this happened, I found myself overcome by worry and unable to focus in my everyday life—certain that she was dead or dying. After that incident, this kind of behavior let me know almost immediately that she had relapsed, but I had no way to know how bad it was or if she needed my help. For example, there was a time when we had hung out multiple days in a row and made a list of summer plans that we wanted to experience together. This included simple things like flashlight tag all the way to making our own Halloween costumes. Then, the next day, when we had planned to go on a hike, I suddenly couldn’t get in contact with her. Fearing the worst, I kept calling and texting to no avail. Then, I suddenly got a call from her roommate who was out of town. She told me that she’d gotten a call from Amanda’s mom, and that Amanda was in danger and needed to go to the hospital. Immediately, I jumped into action and got a couple friends to drive me over to her apartment to check on her. We found her on the floor, refusing to talk or move. Ultimately, she was physically ok, but was mentally struggling. We got her food and water and then I spent the night at her house to make sure she stayed safe. The entire experience made me incredibly scared for my best friend and the seriousness of the disease she was facing. When she was ready, she checked herself in to in-patient care and utilized other programs meant to support addicts.

One of the most important things I learned from this cycle was the art of repair. When Amanda relapsed, she often did things that directly broke my trust or showed disrespect to our relationship. Because I cared for her and was beginning to understand the monster of addiction, I was always willing to be forgiving. However, we always took it a step further than that. After having hard conversations, we would set new boundaries in place to protect both me and our friendship during these situations. I’ve never gotten used to watching Amanda relapse, but I now have tools to more effectively deal with it and better support her in the process.

For example, it was not my responsibility to keep her from drinking. This meant that I would never feel at fault or responsible in any way for her relapses. I could support her and ask her if she thought it was a good idea, but ultimately she is an adult who can make her own decisions, even if they aren’t the best ones. Additionally, because of the trust built in our relationship, she felt safe to text and communicate with me even if she was not doing well. This allowed me to feel more comfortable with her safety, as we agreed she would keep me updated on her location even if she was relapsing. These and other agreements and boundaries led to much more freedom and trust in our relationship. This didn’t mean that things were easy. It still hurt every time I had to realize I couldn’t save my best friend from this disease, only she could and only when she was ready and equipped with the proper tools that would work for her.

Addiction has many faces. There isn’t a cure-all solution for everyone who suffers from it. Recovering from addiction is a process and a practice, not a cure. Everyone’s journey looks different and everyone needs tools specific to them to support that journey. Oftentimes, dealing with addiction means dealing with past trauma and other unhealthy behaviors that surround it. It isn’t easy; it takes incomprehensible amounts of work and determination. I admire addicts, anywhere they are on the road to recovery, because the strength that it takes to stand back up and try again is so much more than I could even imagine. I admire Amanda, because no matter how hard things get for her, she keeps trying and finding new and different ways to work on her recovery.

This relationship has taught me so many things—from healthy boundaries to good communication. But, the thing it has taught me most of all is the true meaning of unconditional love. Unconditional love involves boundaries and healthy communication. It does not say “I will love you no matter what you do and what you do to me” but instead “I will love you how I can, even in your darkness”.

 

Closing Words:

And in the end,

we were all just humans,

drunk on the idea that love,

only love,

could heal our brokenness.

~Chrisopher Poindexter

 

Losing Our Heroes

 

Opening Words:

It was when I stopped searching for home within others

And lifted the foundations of home within myself

I found there were no roots more intimate

Than those between a mind and body

That have decided to be whole

~Rupi Kaur

 

Sermon: Losing Our Heroes

When it was revealed that Neil Gaiman, my favorite author, was a serial rapist I was devastated. In my teenage years, I had gone out of my way to get my hands on as many of his books as possible and I still to that day viewed him as both a writing and moral idol based on his non-fiction writings and talks. He had a profound impact on my experience of strong female lead characters and influenced my views on trauma and abuse. When I was in college I waited in a line that went around three buildings from 4pm until 11:30pm just to get one of my books signed by him. American Gods (one of his books) profoundly shaped how I interacted with religion and the power of belief. He was married to another one of my idols, the musician Amanda Palmer, and I thought that together they were unstoppable. My first hint should have been their messy divorce that divided the internet into taking sides with one or the other. Then, this information came out and my beliefs about Neil Gaiman as a Good person and moral exemplar were entirely shattered. I was heartbroken that someone I had looked up to so much turned out to be such a vile person.

I know that many other people in my age group had this experience when J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, came out as transphobic. So many people who had looked to Harry Potter as a source of moral excellence and genuine acceptance had their worlds blown apart.

But this phenomenon of our heroes being outed as bad people is not solely a product of the time we live in now. I remember when I was young, I learned that Gandhi was a perfect and admirable revolutionary with peerless beliefs and a strictly good moral code. However, when I was in high school, I learned the truth about Gandhi. Despite his impact and good intentions, he was wildly racist and treated POC with extreme disrespect. He was also incredibly sexist, treating women (especially his wife) as lesser beings and fighting against access to birth control. This is not even to mention some of the practices he participated in to prove his celibacy and religious views.

It isn’t easy to lose our heroes. Every time another famous person is outed as a rapist or racist, I feel my heart break a little more for those who looked up to them. Sometimes it can feel like losing our heroes makes us lose faith in humanity as a whole. “If even they’re a horrible person, then what hope do the rest of us have?” Although losing our heroes isn’t entirely unique to this time, it is more prominent because of social media and our obsession with knowing the details of celebrities’ lives. Therefore, it seems like almost every week that more evidence comes out against people we look up to.

So how do we take this? How do we deal with losing the people who acted as our idols and moral compasses? Does it mean that all of our idols are bad people? Do we have to stop enjoying their work?

Well to answer the first question—how do we deal with this—I think it’s important to first acknowledge our own heartbreak and anger. These are extremely valid feelings that we should feel when someone does something despicable. Then, I think it’s important to recognize that everyone, even celebrities, are human. This means that they are just as liable to do terrible things as any other person, if not even more so because of their access to power and influence. After recognizing this, we should help in doing the work to hold these people accountable for their actions, not allowing them to get away with things because they are rich or powerful. Then, we are allowed to grieve. In this grief, I think it is most important to recognize the values and beliefs that you had admired in this person and realize that you were not at fault for looking up to them because you saw these things. Remember that the ideals and values that you saw in this person are still valuable and good, even if they were unable to uphold them themselves.

Then, “does this mean that all of our idols are bad people?”. Objectively, it does not. However, it is important to still keep in mind that these people are human, and looking at them as infallible is simply unrealistic. There will always be times that people mess up or do something wrong. It’s how they choose to deal with these things that matters. Obviously, there are degrees of messing up that are acceptable, and those that are not, but overall people should be allowed to make up for the mistakes that they make. For example, Zach Braff (an actor in the show Scrubs and a film director) wrote the movie Garden State, where he displayed Natalie Portman as the perfect example of the sexist Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. However, later on when he was confronted with this accusation, Braff owned up to it, saying that he made a mistake and had learned from it so that he could do better in the future. Because of this, I am able to see Zach Braff, one of my idols, as a human who made a mistake and learned from it rather than as a bad person.

The last question: do we have to stop enjoying their work? This answer is complicated and nuanced. On one hand, the good things that you got out of their work and example were not fake. You genuinely experienced these good things and learned from them, so they are still valuable. However, we cannot just stop there and say “death of the author” or separating the art from the artist is good enough. At the very least, we owe our favorite works of art or our preferred social revolutions a more critical eye with our new perspective on their authors beliefs and actions. More often than not, we unfortunately find things that we had not seen before that support these poor views and choices. For example, in Harry Potter, the existence of goblins as big-nosed and frugal is inherently anti-Semitic due to the cultural context and existing tropes, whether she intended it or not. Despite these issues and her actions, there are still positive things one could draw from Harry Potter. However, we owe ourselves the critical thinking to determine what those really are and what falls short. In addition, it is important not to support these people or their platforms, especially monetarily. This means not buying books by Neil Gaiman or purchasing Harry Potter merchandise. Because these people can and will use their platforms and the money they get to continue to spread hate, as J.K. Rowling has done by donating exuberant amounts of money to anti-trans organizations. And, perhaps most importantly, we should offer loud and focused support to the groups being harmed by these issues without shaming those who draw good things from their works.

As a whole, losing our heroes is hard. It’s complicated and messy and painful. But it is also an important part of growing up to see our heroes as human beings, perhaps worthy of our admiration, but also flawed and capable of making mistakes. When we lose our heroes it also presents us with a fantastic opportunity to reassess our own values and the things we admired about these people. In a sense, it allows us to become our own heroes by championing the good and worthwhile values that we saw in these people. So, I invite you to take a critical look at your heroes and the values and beliefs that you appreciate in them and decide how you want to live out these values and beliefs yourself.

 

Closing Words:

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean—

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

~Mary Oliver

The Shirley Exception

 

Opening Words:

La gaudiere—a glimpse of goodness you notice in someone that you wouldn’t expect, which often only detectable by sloshing them back and forth in your mind until everything dark and grey and common falls away, leaving something shining at the bottom of the pan—a rare element hidden deep in the bedrock, that must’ve been washed there by a storm somewhere upstream.

~The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

 

Sermon: The Shirley Exception

In our current political climate, there are many different groups of people who believe so many different things. It’s impossible to put labels on them all, because they are just so varied and have so many degrees of and reasons for belief in certain ideals and values. However, I want to talk about a group that has confused me from the very start of the Trump era. This group is your average everyday conservative, who has voted for Trump in both elections but probably doesn’t wear MAGA merch and doesn’t outwardly preach racism, sexism, or transphobia. They generally have gay friends and get along with their POC neighbors. This is a rather large group of people that are mostly kind and generally good people. So how could they vote for people and support policies that directly harm others?

I recently read a post that helped explain this phenomenon. In this post, author Alexandra Erin describes what she calls the “Shirley Exception”. She says “The Shirley Exception is a bit of mental sleight of hand that allows people to support a policy they profess to disagree with. It’s called the Shirley Exception because…

well, I mean, surely there must be exceptions, right?”

She goes on to explain that one of the most pressing fears of conservatives when it comes to policy is that somewhere someone who is “undeserving” will be able to game the system. Take, for example, Food Stamps or SNAP assistance. The basic conservative argument against it is that some people *could* use this system as a way to stay lazy and not work hard for their wealth. The idea that these “Welfare Queens” *could* exist is enough of a deterrent that conservatives think these systems should not exist at all to eliminate that very specific potential.

Another example is something like ICE deporting “illegals” and POC. The conservative disposition is that policies are made to deport these groups of people, but only the ones who “deserve it”. Because of course, your kind Latino neighbor who works hard and loves his children is an exception. Because he is one of the “good ones”. Because of course ICE would be able to determine this and know that your neighbor is not one of “those” people that the policy was created for.

This also explains the immediate backlash and juggle to find “reasons they deserved it” when someone gets killed by law enforcement. I’m sure we have all heard the “but he had a gun!” or “but she was on drugs!” reasonings for why these people deserved to be shot. This is a mental struggle to fit these people into their narrative about how the system and the world works, because if these were “good” people, then surely they would not have been killed.

So, the question is: what do we do about this? My answer is I do not know. Because when presented with the idea that we should then just put the exceptions into writing and policy, they immediately counter once again that someone might take advantage of it. They are totally fine with justice being decided on a case-by-case basis, which is unfortunately how justice tends to work, just not in the way they think it does. They believe that everyone shares their sense of morals and right and wrong, so the cases they think should be condemned will be condemned, and the “good ones” will get off scot free. If they cannot somehow blame the victim and prove they “deserved it”, they then apply exceptionalism to the enforcer saying things like “well that cop was just a bad apple, but MOST cops…”.

One of my main goals of explaining this phenomenon is to give us some context and understanding for why these people behave the way that they do. Now, the Shirley Exception is not an excuse and does not free these people from blame when bad things happen. However, it does give us a way to explain why people who are mostly good can support such terrible things. These people are not evil. Instead, they are just severely misguided about how the world, people, and policy work. They believe that life is mostly fair, and you will only get punished if you should get punished. So, what we are working with here is not just a view on exceptionalism, but in fact a whole worldview that dictates how your average conservative believes that God or the Universe works. So, when we are trying to show these people that the Shirley Exception is wrong, and you provide them with evidence, you are not just dealing with a specific scenario, but instead causing them extreme cognitive dissonance about how the world operates. This is no easy task, because when faced with cognitive dissonance, the reaction of most people is to double down on their beliefs and try to shut out anything that throws their world into chaos.

The first thing to remember when talking with these people about sensitive topics is to be gentle. Having your worldview questioned is not easy and can be incredibly painful and disorienting. It is important to tread with this in consideration during these conversations, and to realize that the restructuring of a worldview is most often a process rather than a realization. While we are not responsible for causing or facilitating this process, we can still be supportive to these people on their journey by offering small bits at a time that challenge their views and providing a compassionate landing space if and when they do come to the realization that the world is different than they thought. We should congratulate and shelter these people rather than shaming them for taking so long to get here.

Now, maybe one of the most important things to realize about the Shirley Exception is that this ideology is not exclusive to moderate conservatives. Even in the center and on the left, we often also hold these views that ourselves, our loved ones, or unique cases will be spared from political consequences. For example, when mask mandates went into place during Covid, I was of the opinion that “of course this would not be enforced on those who for legitimate reasons could not wear a mask”. This is not necessarily true. We need to genuinely think about these things in our policy making, because if something like an exception is not written into a law, then it can easily be over-enforced to not include fringe cases and unique scenarios. If we do not write down these exceptions and reasons for a law being put into place, it can also completely discredit the law and make it irrelevant. It is also important to look within ourselves and question where in our lives we put the Shirley Exception into practice. It does not say something inherently bad about someone just because they practice this ideal, but these areas are essential to look into and reflect on so that we can gain a more accurate view of the world and put more useful and civically responsible policy in place.

So, I invite you to start by putting yourself in the shoes of a moderate conservative and show gentleness and understanding when dealing with them. Then, I welcome you to take a look at your own beliefs and figure out what things you need to modify or research to become a more educated and responsible person.

 

Closing Words:

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

~Thomas Paine

Getting the Youth Out of the Basement

 

Opening Words:

It has been one of the greatest and most difficult years of my life. I learned everything is temporary. Moments. Feelings. People. Flowers. I learned love is about giving. Everything. And letting it hurt. I learned vulnerability is always the right choice because it is easy to be cold in a world that makes it so very difficult to remain soft. I learned all things come in twos. Life and death. Pain and joy. Salt and sugar. Me and you. It is the balance of the universe. It has been the year of hurting so bad but living so good. Making friends out of strangers. Making strangers out of friends. Learning mint chocolate chip ice cream will fix just about everything. And for the pains it can’t there will always be my mother’s arms. We must learn to focus on warm energy. Always. Soak our limbs in it and become better lovers to the world. For if we can’t learn to be kind to each other how will we ever learn to be kind to the most desperate parts of ourselves.

~Rupi Kaur

 

Sermon: Getting the Youth Out of the Basement

“Oh, you’re 23? Come back in 20 years!”

This was something I heard all too often going to divinity school at Iliff in Denver. Now, I’m certain that this experience was not exclusive to Iliff—I would have heard the same thing no matter where I had chosen to go to divinity school.

During high school, I played many large roles in the UU youth community—my crowning achievement being my two years as District Worship chair. I planned, facilitated, and led countless worships in this position. I had the goal of taking worship from a mundane practice at youth conferences, and instead making it into a central piece where youth could truly experience and practice their spirituality. I was wildly successful, hearing from youth and adults alike that worship was now their favorite part of cons. It was then that I knew I wanted to become a minister.

However, as I left the youth community and continued into college, I discovered that my passions and talents no longer had a place. While the youth and older adult communities in Unitarian Universalism are very strong, the young adult community is almost non-existent. Between that and some less good experiences I had within the UU community at that time, I began to seriously question my desire to become a minister. I went through my Undergrad degree studying philosophy and Eastern Religion, all the while searching for a new community that made me feel whole and heard as I had in the UU youth community. When every community I became a part of fell short for some reason or another, I got frustrated. I decided to get back into UUism because it seemed to be the only vehicle I could believably use to create the kind of community I was seeking. Quickly, I found out that the adult community was nothing like the youth community, and that my methods of worship were still opposed to the norm. However, instead of giving up, this just bolstered my desire to share my form of ministry with the community. Hence, I decided at the last minute after I graduated from Colorado State University to apply for Divinity School.

I had expected things to be difficult because of my ideologies and goals for my ministry, but what I did not expect was to be told I did not belong there at all, and that my 23 years experiencing this earth were not good enough for ministry. Because of this, I struggled intensely with making friends and enjoying my classes—eventually leading to my decision to drop out of Iliff and find something else to do with my life. At the end, I had decided that they were right to turn me away.

Many years went by with me carrying this mentality—that I was just “too young” to have anything valuable to say as a minister. However, a few years ago, I remembered something—the theme of my very first youth conference: “Bringing the Youth Out of the Basement”. This theme referred to the fact that most Unitarian Universalist churches have their youth programs in an entirely separate space from the rest of the community—and that that space transcended the physical and bled into the metaphorical as well. It’s a sad fact that, at many UU churches, there are members that don’t even know that there are youth in the community, let alone what they do or think. So, the goal of this discussion was to bring youth back into the picture as valued members of each UU community. I remember that we never really decided on the best way to do this, but more than anything it reminded me that the desperate need for younger voices to be heard in the church has been a problem for an indeterminably long time. So, my question became: why? Why do we shy away from the voices of the youth? Why do we lock them away in basements where the community can’t see them? Why did we decide that young people aren’t valuable as leaders or members just because they are young?

I am now ten years older than I was when I first decided to go to divinity school, and I do see some value in having more life experience and a more mature view on the world. However, my values and goals have remained the same. Instead, gaining more world experience has diminished some of the most important things I had as a youth: confidence, endless energy, and a genuine belief that I could change the world. It makes me wish I had not let such negative views get in my way as a young person, because these things are essentially important to creating a better world. Why would we see these traits as inconsequential when they can create such waves and revolutions? Especially when, in the UU community, youth are doing some of the most important work to create true change. Why are we not recognizing that and empowering it?

I am still young for a minister-- only 32 years old. But, I genuinely believe that the hope, energy, and ingenuity of our youth are absolutely essential to our movement. The youth are not the future, they are here NOW and they have much to say and contribute. So, I invite the adults in the community to do this: find and talk to the youth and young adults. Ask them questions. Be genuinely curious about what they have to say, because they are the ones who can truly change this world. And, to the youth, I invite you to the stage. Share your ideas and values. Be confident in who you are and what you have to offer. And, to our multigenerational community: stand proudly and recognize that the only way we can move forward in this moment is together, valuing each one of us and our gifts regardless of age or life stage.

 

Closing Words:

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.

~Louise Erdrich